Actress Melissa George was only three when The Amityville
Horror hit the big screen in 1979. Based on one couple's
real-life account, the haunted house story hit a collective nerve,
becoming a worldwide hit.

"I didn't even know it was a remake - I just thought it was a
great story," says the former Home and Away star. "Everyone
who's older knows about the story, but I had no idea."

George quickly got an idea after scoring the plum role of Kathy
Lutz. The role of her husband, George Lutz, went to the young actor
Ryan Reynolds.

The Amityville movies were inspired by Jay Anson's book of the
same name, which detailed the woes of the Lutz family when they
moved into a house in Amityville, Long Island, where a family had
been slaughtered in their beds.

On November 13, 1974, Ronald DeFeo jnr shot his parents and four
siblings, claiming "voices" in the house drove him to commit the
murders. A year later, George and Kathy Lutz and their three
children moved into what they thought was their dream home. Four
weeks later, they fled, not pausing to take a single possession
with them.

There have been many theories about the bizarre and inexplicable
events that the Lutzes say occurred in the house. Some people say
the likely explanation is that George Lutz had a breakdown while
living in the house.

As for the star of the remake, George is circumspect about what
she thinks really happened in the house.

"I think it's a combination of everything people think," she
says. "Anyone who doesn't come back for one thing in their house
... something must have happened in the house. Not one thing? You
just open the door and quickly get the thing and run out? No. They
never went back for a thing.

"The fact it could have been true means people just watch the
movie going, 'Gosh, did this really happen?' Of course, half
believe it did and half don't, which makes it even more
interesting."

What most people want to know about any horror movie is if it's
scary or not. The new Amityville prompts at least a couple
of full-body jumps. It even managed to scare its leading actress
when she first saw it.

"I shed my skin, because there were two scares in there I wasn't
aware of," she says.

"It got me great and I loved it - I was getting scared in my own
movie, which was quite fun."

During her whirlwind visit to Australia, George will attend
another screening of the movie with her family in Perth.

"I can't wait," she says. "What you do is sit at the back of the
audience and watch everyone go like this" - sitting on a couch,
George lurches forward at the waist. "The whole audience goes
schzhoong and you're like, 'Yes!' This is the wave of a horror
film. It's when they're scared and they all have the same body
reaction. They either go up or forward, so there's a wave.

"So I'm going to watch the wave with all the Perth people. It's
like, 'C'mon, open your eyes, get scared. You're still alive.'"

If George is sounding a bit excited, she is. Her career is
coming along nicely after landing her first leading role on the big
screen five years after moving to Hollywood.

After a run of scoring roles in TV shows that never got past
their pilots, she guest-starred on Friends as a lesbian
nanny and joined the cast of Alias as the devilish Lauren
Reed.

Later this year, she will play the wife of Clive Owen in
Derailed, which also stars Jennifer Aniston.

George says life in Los Angeles is "brilliant", which is hardly
surprising considering she's now in the same salary bracket as
fellow Aussie Rachel Griffiths.

The only chink comes when George is asked where she lives in the
City of Angels.

"I live about 10 minutes from the Malibu area," is all she'll
reveal. "I have enough troubles. The area's called
'Something'."